Carmel's Keith Fiedler 'was one of those coaches (you) loved to play for'

A quick run-down of the Hamilton County district with the largest high school in the state. Emma Kate Fittes/IndyStar
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County rivals HSE and Carmel tangle in this opening game Friday night at Hamilton Southeastern. Here, Carmel head coach Keith Fiedler calls out a play from the sidelines. Carmel won a hard-fought game, 14-13. Photo...Rich Miller(Photo: Rich Miller, Indianapolis Star)Buy Photo

It was late summer 1977. Keith Fiedler was 25 years old, going into his fourth year as a defensive backs coach for the Carmel High School football team.

Scott Jordan was hoping to be one of those defensive backs. He was “five-foot nothing, weighed 100 pounds and nothing and ran the 40-yard dash in about three weeks.” After the first practice of two-a-days, coach Dick Dullaghan told him he was welcome to be part of the team – but might want to evaluate his situation.

Jordan parked his car that afternoon in the upper lot at the school and walked down the hill for the day’s second practice, staring at his feet. There, about halfway down the hill, was Fiedler.

“Scotty, I believe in you,” Fiedler told him. “You’re my guy.”

It was exactly the right message, delivered at just the right time. More than 40 years later, Jordan remembers the moment like it happened yesterday.

“He made it OK for coaches to love their players and for the players to love their coaches,” Jordan said. “The last thing I told him on Thursday was that I loved him.”

Fiedler, after a short battle with cancer, died Sunday at age 66. It was sudden and unexpected news in Carmel, where Fiedler spent the entirety of his 31-year coaching career, including from 1997-2004 as the head coach of the Greyhounds.

Fiedler – or ‘Coach Fieds” – was a beloved figure on the football field and in the classroom, where he taught biology. Jack Beery first became acquainted with Fiedler while going through the Carmel football camps in the late 1970s. He later came back to serve as an assistant on his staff.

“He was not only a great teacher in the classroom and coach on the field, but he was a friend for the rest of your life,” Beery said. “He was so approachable for kids. He was one of those coaches who kids loved to play for. He was always willing to help, even if it was other coaches. He was never threatened by that.”

Carmel was 65-33 with five sectional championships in Fiedler’s eight seasons. Prior to his tenure as a head coach, Fiedler was a defensive backs coach and assistant defensive coordinator at Carmel from 1974-84 and defensive coordinator from 1985-96 under Jim Belden at the school. He was inducted into the Indiana Football Hall of Fame in 2006.

Dullaghan was newly-hired at Carmel in the spring of 1973 and in search of an assistant when he attended a practice at Franklin College. When Dullaghan asked legendary Franklin coach Red Faught if he had any potential candidates, Faught pointed at Fiedler.

It turned out to be a perfect fit. Fiedler, who was an all-state running back at Woodlan High School in 1969 and was a standout player at Franklin, immediately took to coaching defensive backs.

“He was ahead of his time as a defensive secondary coach,” Dullaghan said. “He was doing things with coverages that nobody else was doing at that time. And he just did a magnificent job of getting those tough little defensive backs to play their butt off for him. He knew how to handle kids and motivate them without yelling and screaming. I was the one doing that half the time.”

Though Fiedler coached outstanding players like Mark Herrmann, Matt Elliot and Mark Hagen, it was his connection to the lesser-talented players like Jordan that made him so beloved.

Jordan, who lives in Cincinnati, drove to see Fiedler the night he heard about his cancer. Jordan not only stayed on the team as a senior in the fall of 1977, but became a starter. He walked on and played at Ball State.

“I would have never played college football if not for him,” Jordan said.

The past 33 years, Jordan has coached football at the middle school level in Cincinnati. Several years ago, a young man named Dan Maloney who had gone on to play football in college approached Jordan and put his arm around him. He said he had also got into coaching.

“‘I coach like you do,’ Maloney told Jordan. “‘With all the love and passion for the kids and the game.’”

Jordan corrected him. “No, you coach like coach Fiedler,” he said.

“His legacy will continue,” Jordan said Monday, “because he cared so much about the kids he taught and coached.”